A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (45 page)
1159: The
Emperor in Antioch
The news of Manuel’s approach had brought King
Baldwin, with his brother Amalric and the Patriarch Aimery, hastening from the
south. They arrived at Antioch soon after Reynald’s return. Baldwin was a
little disappointed to hear of Reynald’s pardon and he wrote at once to Manuel
to beg for an audience. Manuel hesitated, apparently because he believed that
Baldwin desired the principality for himself. This may have been part of Aimery’s
suggestion. But when Baldwin insisted, Manuel yielded. Baldwin rode out from
Antioch escorted by citizens praying him to reconcile them with the Emperor.
The interview was an immense success. Manuel was charmed by the young King,
whom he kept as his guest for ten days. While they discussed plans for an
alliance, Baldwin succeeded in securing a pardon for Thoros, who went through
the same procedure as Reynald had done, and who was allowed to keep his
territory in the mountains. It was probably due to Baldwin that Manuel did not
insist on the immediate installation of the Greek Patriarch. Aimery was
re-established on his patriarchal throne and was formally reconciled with
Reynald. When Baldwin returned to Antioch, laden with gifts, he left his
brother behind with the Emperor.
On Easter Sunday, 12 April 1159, Manuel came to
Antioch and made his solemn entry into the city. The Latin authorities tried to
keep him away by saying that there was a plot to assassinate him there; but he
was not intimidated. He merely insisted that the citizens should give him
hostages and that the Latin princes who were to take part in the procession
should be unarmed. He himself wore mail beneath his robes. There was no untoward
incident. While the imperial banners floated over the citadel, the cortege
passed over the fortified bridge into the city. First came the superb
Varangians of the Imperial Guard. Then the Emperor himself, on horseback, in a
purple mantle, and on his head a diadem dripping with pearls. Reynald, on foot,
held his bridle, and other Frankish lords walked beside the horse. Behind him
rode Baldwin, uncrowned and unarmed. Then there followed the high functionaries
of the Empire. Just inside the gates waited the Patriarch Aimery, in full
pontificals, with all his clergy, to lead the procession through streets strewn
with carpets and with flowers, first to the Cathedral of St Peter, then on to
the palace.
For eight days Manuel remained in Antioch; and
festivity followed festivity. He himself, though proud and majestic on solemn
occasions, radiated a personal charm and friendliness that captivated the
crowds; and the lavishness of his gifts, to the nobles and the populace alike,
enhanced the general rejoicing. As a gesture to the Occident he organized a
tournament and made his comrades join him in the jousts. He was a fine horseman
and acquitted himself with honour; but his commanders, to whom horsemanship was
a means, and not an end, were less impressive in comparison with the knights of
the West. The intimacy between the Emperor and his nephew-by-marriage, the
King, grew closer. When Baldwin broke his arm out hunting, Manuel insisted on
treating it himself, just as he had acted as medical adviser to Conrad of Germany.
This splendid week marked the triumph of the
Emperor’s prestige. But Gerard of Lattakieh was right. It was prestige, not
conquest, that he wanted. When all the feasts were ended, he rejoined his army
outside the walls and moved eastward to the Moslem frontier. He was met almost
at once by ambassadors from Nur ed-Din, with full powers to negotiate a truce.
To the fury of the Latins, who had expected him to march on Aleppo, he received
the embassy, and discussions began. When Nur ed-Din offered to release all the
Christian captives, to the number of six thousand, that were in his prisons and
to send an expedition against the Seldjuk Turks, Manuel agreed to call off the
campaign.
1159
:
Manuel’s Truce with Nur ed-Din
He had probably never intended to carry on with
it; and though the Crusaders and their modem apologists might cry treason, it
is hard to see what else he could have done. To the Crusaders Syria was
all-important, but to Manuel it was only one frontier-zone out of many and not
the most vital to his Empire. He could not afford to remain for many months at
the end of a long and vulnerable line of communications, nor, magnificent
though his army was, could he risk heavy losses to it with impunity. Moreover
he had no wish to cause the break-up of Nur ed-Din’s power. He knew from bitter
experience that the Franks only welcomed him when they were frightened. It
would be folly to remove their chief source of fear. And Nur ed-Din’s alliance
was a valuable asset in the wars against a far more dangerous enemy to the
Empire, the Turks of Anatolia. But, as the sequel showed, he would give help to
prevent Nur ed-Din’s conquest of Egypt; for that would fatally upset the
equilibrium. Perhaps, had he been less precipitate, he might have obtained
better terms. But he had received worrying news of a plot at Constantinople and
troubles on his European frontier. He could not anyhow afford to stay much
longer in Syria.
Nevertheless his truce with Nur ed-Din was a
psychological mistake. For a moment the Franks had been prepared to accept him
as leader; but he had shown himself, as wiser men would have foreseen, more
interested in his Empire’s fate than in theirs. Nor were they much consoled by
the release of the Christian captives. They included some important local
warriors, such as the Grand Master of the Temple, Bertrand of Blanefort; but
they were for the most part Germans captured during the Second Crusade, and
amongst them was the claimant to Tripoli, Bertrand of Toulouse, whose
reappearance might have been embarrassing had his health not been broken by
captivity.
When the truce was concluded, the Emperor and
his army retreated westward, slowly at first, then faster as more alarming news
arrived from his capital. Some of Nur ed-Din’s followers tried to harass it,
against their master’s wishes; and when, to save time, it cut through Seldjuk
territory, there were skirmishes with the Sultan’s troops. But it arrived
intact at Constantinople in the late summer. After some three months, Manuel
crossed again into Asia to campaign against the Seldjuks, to try out against
them a new and more mobile form of tactics. Meanwhile his envoys were building
up the coalition against the Seldjuk Sultan, Kilij Arslan II. Nur ed-Din,
deeply relieved by Manuel’s departure, advanced into Seldjuk territory from the
middle Euphrates. The Danishmend prince Yakub Arslan attacked from the
north-east, so successfully that the Sultan was obliged to cede to him the
lands round Albistan in the Anti-Taurus. Meanwhile the Byzantine general, John Contostephanus,
collected the levies that Reynald and Thoros were bound by treaty to provide,
and, with a contingent of Petchenegs, settled by Manuel in Cilicia, moved up
through the Taurus passes; and Manuel and the main Imperial army, reinforced by
troops provided by the Prince of Serbia and Frankish pilgrims recruited when
their ships called in at Rhodes, swept up the valley of the Meander. The Sultan
had to divide his forces. When Contostephanus won a complete victory over the
Turks sent to oppose him, Kilij Arslan gave up the struggle. He wrote to the
Emperor offering in return for peace to give back all the Greek cities occupied
in recent years by the Moslems, to see that the frontiers were respected and
that raiding ceased, and to provide a regiment to fight in the Imperial army
whenever it might be required. Manuel agreed to the terms; but he kept in
reserve the Sultan’s rebellious brother Shahinshah, who had come to him for
protection. So, to confirm the treaty, Kilij Arslan sent his Christian chancellor,
Christopher, to Constantinople to suggest an official visit to the imperial
Court. Hostilities ended in the summer of 1161; and next spring Kilij Arslan
was received at Constantinople. The ceremonies were splendid. The Sultan was treated
with great honour and showered with gifts, but was treated as a vassal-prince.
The news of the visit impressed all the princes of the East.
1160: Reynald
taken Prisoner
It is in this general light that we must judge
Manuel’s eastern policy. He had won a very valuable victory of prestige and he
had, temporarily at least, humbled the Seldjuks, who had been the main threat
to his Empire. This success brought certain advantages to the Franks. Nur
ed-Din had not been defeated, but he had been scared. He would not attempt a direct
attack on Christian territory. At the same time the peace with the Seldjuks
reopened the land route for pilgrims from the West. There was an increase in
their numbers; and that more did not arrive was due to western politics, to the
wars between the Hohenstaufen and the Papalists in Germany and Italy and
between the Capetians and the Plantagenets in France. But, though Byzantium was
to remain for the next twenty years the greatest influence in northern Syria,
its genuine friends among the Franks were very few.
Events in 1160 showed both the nature and the
value of the Imperial suzerainty over Antioch. King Baldwin had returned to the
south and was engaged on a few minor raids in Damascene territory, taking
advantage of Nur ed-Din’s preoccupations in the north, when he heard that
Reynald had been taken prisoner by Nur ed-Din. In November 1160 the seasonal
movement of herds from the mountains of the Anti-Taurus into the Euphratesian
plain tempted the Prince to make a raid up the river valley. As he returned,
slowed down by the droves of cattle and camels and horses that he had rounded
up, he was ambushed by the governor of Aleppo, Nur ed-Din’s foster-brother Majd
ed-Din. He fought bravely; but his men were outnumbered and he himself was
unhorsed and captured. He was sent with his comrades, bound, on camel-back, to
Aleppo, where he was to remain in gaol for sixteen years. Neither the Emperor
nor the King of Jerusalem nor even the people of Antioch showed any haste to
ransom him. In his prison he found young Joscelin of Courtenay, titular Count
of Edessa, who had been captured on a raid a few months previously.
Reynald’s elimination raised a constitutional
problem in Antioch, where he had reigned as the husband of the Princess
Constance. She now claimed that the power reverted to her; but public opinion
supported the rights of her son by her first marriage, Bohemond, surnamed the
Stammerer, who was however only aged fifteen. It was a situation similar to
that of Queen Melisende and Baldwin III in Jerusalem a few years previously.
There w
a
s no immediate danger, because Nur ed-Din’s fear of Manuel
kept him from attacking Antioch itself. But some effective government must be
provided. Strictly speaking, it w
a
s for the Emperor as the accepted
suzerain of Antioch to settle the question. But Manuel was far away, and the
Antiochenes had not accepted him without reservations. The Norman princes of
Antioch had considered themselves as sovereign princes; but the frequent
minorities amongst their successors had obliged the Kings of Jerusalem to
intervene, more as kinsmen than as suzerains. There had, however, grown up in
Antioch a sentiment that regarded the King as suzerain; and there is little
doubt that Manuel had only been accepted so easily because Baldwin was present to
give his approval to the arrangement. It was to Baldwin, not to Manuel, that
the people of Antioch looked now for a solution. On their invitation he came to
Antioch, declared Bohemond III to be the rightful prince, and entrusted the
government to the Patriarch Aimery till the Prince should be of age. The
decision displeased Constance, and its method displeased Manuel. The Princess
promptly appealed to the Imperial Court.
1161: Melisende
of Tripoli
About the end of the year 1159 the Empress
Irene, born Bertha of Sulzbach, had died leaving only a daughter behind her. In
1160 an embassy led by John Contostephanus, accompanied by the chief
interpreter of the Court, the Italian Theophylact, arrived at Jerusalem to ask
the King to nominate one of the eligible princesses of Outremer as bride for
the widowed Emperor. There were two candidates, Maria, daughter of Constance of
Antioch, and Melisende, daughter of Raymond II of Tripoli, both of them Baldwin’s
cousins and both famed for their beauty. Distrusting a close family alliance
between the Emperor and Antioch, Baldwin suggested Melisende. The ambassadors
went on to Tripoli to report on the Princess, whom the whole Frankish East
saluted as the future Empress. Raymond of Tripoli proudly determined to give
his sister a worthy dowry and spent vast sums on her trousseau. Presents poured
in from her mother Hodierna and her aunt Queen Melisende. Knights from all
parts hurried to Tripoli in the hope of being asked to the wedding. But no
confirmation came from Constantinople. The ambassadors sent to Manuel glowing
and intimate accounts of Melisende’s person, but they also recorded a rumour
about her birth, based on her mother’s known quarrel with her father. There
seems to have been in fact no doubt about her legitimacy; but the gossip may
have made the Emperor hesitate. Then he heard of Baldwin’s intervention at
Antioch and received Constance’s appeal. In the early summer of 1161 Raymond,
having grown impatient, sent one of his knights, Otto of Risberg, to
Constantinople to ask what was afoot. About August Otto returned with the news
that the Emperor repudiated the engagement.
The shock and humiliation were too much for
Melisende. She fell into a decline and soon faded away, as the
Princesse
Lointaine
of medieval French romance. Her brother Raymond was furious. He
demanded angrily to be recouped for the sums that he had spent on her
trousseau; and when that was refused, he fitted out the twelve galleys that he
had ordered to convey her to Constantinople as men-of-war and led them to raid
the coasts of Cyprus.
King Baldwin, who was staying with his cousins
waiting for news, was seriously disquieted, especially when the Byzantine
ambassadors received orders to go to Antioch. He hurried after them, to find in
Antioch a splendid embassy from the Emperor, headed by Alexius Bryennius
Comnenus, son of Anna Comnena, and the Prefect of Constantinople, John
Camaterus. They had already negotiated a marriage contract between their master
and the Princess Maria of Antioch; and their presence had sufficed to establish
Constance as ruler of the principality. Baldwin had to accept the situation.
Maria, who was lovelier even than her cousin Melisende, set sail from Saint
Symeon in September, proud to be an Empress and happy in her ignorance of her
ultimate destiny. She was married to the Emperor in December in the Church of
Saint Sophia at Constantinople by the three Patriarchs, Luke of Constantinople,
Sophronius of Alexandria and the titular Patriarch of Antioch, Athanasius II.